Baguettes and Basics

For a small dinner the other night I asked my friend Olivier to bring two baguettes from the boulangerie that faces his building, on the Boulevard de Charonne in the 20th arrondissement. The baguettes from this boulangerie are among the best I’ve had in Paris, which is saying something, since it’s pretty easy to find a good baguette pretty much everywhere in France.

Everyone here has opinions on baguettes, and if someone’s brought a particularly good one, you mention it. If it’s an ordinary baguette, you don’t. The difference between extraordinary and ordinary is in the texture – or crumb – and the crust. Simply by dining at friends’ homes, I’ve tasted a lot of very good and a few passable baguettes. I’ve gotten used to having baguettes of a certain quality. (And in New York I find myself being “that person” who, thanks to spending time abroad, offers decided and unasked-for opinions on the quality of the baguettes you can find in Manhattan.)

When people order a baguette at boulangeries here, they specify whether it should be “bien cuit” or “pas trop cuit,” which mainly refers to how dark or crisp the crust should be. I prefer “très bien cuit,” with a very dark crust, but I know people who ask for softer baguettes because they feel that these will last longer, and that the bread for their morning “tartine” or buttered baguette – which is usually what’s left of the baguette from the night before – won’t go stale as quickly as a baguette with a darker crust.

People also buy baguettes at different times of the day, close to meal times, to ensure that they’re getting the ones freshest from the oven. Baguettes are serious business in France.

You can order a regular baguette or “une baguette de tradition.” The difference between them is that that a regular baguette can contain certain additives – such as ascorbic acid – while by law the “baguette de tradition” can only be made with wheat flour, water, yeast, leaving and salt, although very small percentages of other flours, such as wheat malt flour or soy flour, are permitted. I prefer the baguettes de tradition – I find they have more flavor.

Sundays, most boulangeries are open just until about 1 p.m., so you usually find a queue for bread as the morning wears on – since people are pressed to buy their baguettes for lunch, dinner and perhaps the next morning’s breakfast.

I’m lucky enough in this part of the 17th arrondissement to have three boulangerie-patisseries close by (a boulangerie offers mainly bread, sandwiches, and some pastries, while a patisserie specializes in desserts, though it can offer sandwiches and bread too).

The corner bakery is Le P’tit qu’a le Pain (the name comes from a hoary joke about a dwarf). It’s a simple spot, with piles of long standard baguettes, sturdy rustic-looking baguettes de tradition, and a small variety of specialty breads. Les Enfants Gâtés (or the spoiled children), across the Rue Cardinet from this boulangerie, does sell bread, but specializes in desserts. Down the block on the rue Cardinet is La Boulangerie du Parc Monceau, which is a combination boulangerie-patisserie that offers a variety of tartes and gateaux but also good breads and sandwiches, and caters to the office crowd.

The baguettes are different at each spot. I sometimes prefer those at La Boulangerie du Parc Monceau to those from Le P’tit qu’a le Pain, but they’re both good. The baguettes at Les Enfants Gâtés don’t seem to be baked on premises – I’ve seen a delivery truck unloading baguettes there from the patisserie’s other location, in Levallois, just outside Paris. I can actually tell the difference between one baked on site and one brought from elsewhere.

This matters because bread makes up so much of the daily life of France. It’s still an everyday essential that’s more than something to eat, withstanding faddism and changing tastes (and even if gluten-free bread is available at most boulangeries). Baguettes are part of what you look for here, what you expect to see as an element of a meal or a gathering. Bread isn’t taken for granted. Bread isn’t frowned upon as a dietary no-no. A meal isn’t the same without a baguette. The basics still count for a lot.